Tumwater Walmart Carjacking Man Shot
courtesy theolympian.com
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Maybe you saw our post over the weekend about a Florida man who attempted two carjackings last week outside a Jacksonville Walmart he’d just robbed, only to be confronted by two drivers who were carrying guns. Yesterday, a continent away, another similar situation took place.

The facts are fuzzy as to whether the suspect in this case ever tried to rob the Tumwater, Washington Walmart, but, just like Jacksonville man, he attempted two carjackings, at least one in the Walmart parking lot. The difference in this case was, this perp had a firearm.

(A) man had tried to carjack a car, and shot a man inside the car twice. He then tried to carjack another car. Two citizens in the parking lot drew weapons; at least one of them shot and killed the armed man, (a police spokeswoman) said. …

Laura Wohl, spokeswoman for the Tumwater Police Department, said an adult man who had been shot was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He was shot while the armed suspect tried to carjack his vehicle, Wohl said.

Here’s hoping the injured driver makes a full recovery.

Again, just as in the earlier Jacksonville situation, this suburban broad daylight violence was handled by armed citizens before police could have possibly responded at the scene. Cops simply can’t be everywhere they’re needed at all times. We are our own first responders.

The un-named, now deceased suspect was a clear danger to law-abiding civilians. Those citizens acted within their rights to stop a lethal threat and protect themselves. This is why we carry.

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51 COMMENTS

  1. Today the Washington Post/Pravda-on-the-Potomac actually carried this story on its website version WITHOUT snide comments about civilians using gun, the police should have been called, &c, &c. I was shocked, to say the least. The facts, ma’am, just the facts. BTW, the WaPo story said there may have been as many as three legally armed citizens that engaged the perp during his rampage. Nice work gang. It’s why we carry.

    • That’s unpossible! When armed citizens engage a criminal, nobody knows who the good guy with a gun is! They’ll all shoot each other! It’ll be blood in the streets, I tell ya!

      Except when it’s pretty frickin’ obvious who the bad guy is, and all the good guys hose him down appropriately.

  2. I’ve been following this in the local media. You know it is a big deal when even the Seattle Times refers to the citizen who shot the guy as a “hero.”

    Sounds like the deceased perpetrator had a pretty good criminal history including felony convictions. Latest media reports say that he did fire some shots inside the Walmart, broke into the locked ammunition case and stole some ammo before heading out the door.

    The reasonable person might start to think that felons don’t follow the law…

    • I’m sure Nick Hanauer and his group will sponsor an astroturf voter initiative to require a 4473 to buy ammo. That’ll stop guys like this!

      • I’m not a local. I grew up in Southern California – but Dad drank Oly.

        On one of our multi-week summer (Dad was a teacher) camping trips, though, we did stay on the peninsula for a few days. We toured the brewery. I must’ve been 6 or 7. I remember 1) the pedestrian bridge over the highway, 2) the stink of the inside of the brewery (little did I know how much I’d come to love that smell), and 3) sitting in a corner at the end of the tour drinking root beer with my siblings, while my parents sampled the local product.

        • Good looking GSD you have there, Don! I have a 3-YO male, wish I would have gotten him sooner. It’s nice to have a dog that minds better than my children do!

  3. The poor suspect was probably turning his life around in his new position as a Walmart valet parking expert.

  4. These encounters with armed citizens just never seem to go very well for the criminals.

  5. So I’m sitting on a state ferry leaving Seattle. A homeless man hired to get initiative signatures just tried to get me to sign on to the AWB/mag cap initiative. Two millennial Amazon programmers talking about how they might get guns to keep in a safe in case the world ends, but otherwise carrying a gun? Why would anyone ever do that?

    They vote and they are flooding this once great state.

    • In six months those two Amazonians will be regulars at the local USPSA, IDPA, and 3-Gun matches. A lot of us started out just wanting something for home defense.
      Baby steps.

      • You’re right, they seem to go one way or the other. Either you can’t wash the Bay Area and Austin/Boston attitude out of them, and they become obedient Bloomberg minions, or they discover that some disposable income and a gun range means lots of fun and cool new toys. Some of the nicest people I’ve met at firearms courses have been “Microsofties” – but I’m afraid the new breed of Amazombie tech bro is different.

        • I was president of the Microsoft Gun Club (yes, there existed such a thing!) for a couple of years. Before I joined, it was more skewed towards sporting clays and such, but when I joined, a few friends and I redirected the focus towards more defensive pistol and carbine use. We even sponsored Jeff Gonzales to come up and teach a few classes, which was a great time.

          We were generally treated with benign neglect, but the Microsoft attorneys did get excited when we attempted to have Olympic Arms custom engrave some AR-15s with the Microsoft logo and “Point and click technology” (* early Windows days…).

      • Competition makes you improve.

        Anyone can shoot fine off a bench in their own time.

        Real shooting is learning to shoot when you’re not ready and from real world positions, ie: standing, sitting, kneeling, or prone. For this service rifle competition is my edge.

  6. Salute to those citizens for stepping up. As a retired L.E.O. I used to tell people, “I’m a historian and a janitor. I write down what happened and clean up the mess.” You’re responsible for your own safety. Again, outstanding job.

  7. I think Dan needs to take a geography class. Florida and Washington are on the same continent. They are not a continent away.

  8. “The un-named, now deceased suspect was a clear danger to law-abiding civilians. ”

    One less scumbag to waste a lifetime of money on his incarceration.

  9. These Walmart robbers/carjackers need to better identify democrats for targeting for their crimes. Not only will their success rates rise, the friggin’ democrats will deserve it.

  10. I read that this started someplace far removed from the Walmart. Our unsung felon hero shot a man trying to hijack his car, and either took that car or another, and then fled. The police, alerted to a prior incident, were nearby when it happened, and they followed the guy all the way to WalMart. On the way, a teenager was struck by the BG’s car. Then, with still no police intervention, he goes into the store, steals ammo,. fires off a few rounds, and then goes outside where he tried to carjack yet another vehicle. Why the police failed to intervene is unknown and unremarked upon at this time; fortunately a citizen stood up and said, “No more!”

    • From what I understand you sort of have it right. From talking with friends that were at the Wal-Mart when this went down it was something like this. It started near Tumwater high school when he car jacked a 16 year old girls car at gun point. This is about a mile away from the Wal-Mart. He then drove the newly acquired car to the Tumwater Wal-Mart. He then went to the gun area and shot the gun case. Presumably to get at the ammo. This caused a huge panic inside the Wal-Mart. Friends described it as chaos inside the store and in the parking lot. The guy then exited the store and went up to the first car. Demanded the male driver to leave the car at gun point. The driver refused so the guy shot him in the neck and collar bone shattering the bone. He then turned his attention to the next car. That driver was armed and shot him though his drivers window without rolling it down killing him. At that same time two other separate armed citizens come up to assist.

      I’m thinking the second car saw what just happen to the guy in the first car and was ready for him when he approached his car. Keep in mind this is all different piece I’ve heard from people there. But shows you how fast this stuff goes down.

  11. My wife is constantly asking me “Why don’t you like shopping at Wal-Mart?” When I’m dragged there, I point out the dregs of society that frequent Wal-Marts, and she gets on me for being “judge-y.”

    Yea, those of us who like western civilization have that habit.

    I have not explained to her that my theory of “avoiding stupid people, doing stupid stuff, in stupid places” now includes, in fact especially includes, Wal-Mart. Even here in Wyoming, I’m noticing a trend of increasing aggressive panhandlers, ne’r-do-wells, etc in the Wal-Mart.

    Maybe it’s time I sat her down and ‘splained things with these news articles in hand… “see, it isn’t just me who thinks Wal-Marts are populated by stupid people doing stupid stuff…”

    Sometimes, she gets on me for wanting to pack a Government Model everywhere I go. “It prints.” “It’s big.” “Good grief, someone is going to see that, sooner or later…” So maybe I take this as a Sign from Above that I should buy a small revolver and pocket holster to stuff five rounds in my pocket…

    • “Sometimes, she gets on me for wanting to pack a Government Model everywhere I go. “It prints.” “It’s big.” “Good grief, someone is going to see that, sooner or later…””

      It’s *Wyoming*, for crying out loud! Is it illegal to print? Isn’t open carry OK?

      (If you do go revolver, check out the trigger on Ruger’s LCR. I think even you will like that one…)

      • She hangs out at times with some people who I would deem “mentally fragile…”

        When I show up to some gatherings as her “+1,” some of these people look at her as tho she just brought a flatulent 150-lb pit bull into their midst – even if I’m not packing. They all know what I do, and when they inquire how things are going, it’s with the temerity of an amateur defusing a bomb. If I answer elliptically, they become a bit more direct – like they have some sort of morbid curiosity about a scandalous accident or some such.

        Which is all very amusing to me, because I’m perfectly happy to not discuss guns in public.

    • I’ve sent rounds downrange towards various personages over a 2 decade carreer in somewhat unsavory surroundings and I must say that I’ve started to feel those “mental alarm bells ringing” again EACH TIME the wife drags me to the local (and only) Wallyworld in town.

      • Exactly. I lived in the LA area in the mid-late 80’s, and I often had to be in some sketchy places in the some of the more dangerous areas of LA at really stupid times of the night (because mainframe/mini-computer systems never wanted to be upgraded during business hours). I’ve never sent rounds downrange on people, but I’ve had a couple of closer-than-I-wanted situations where I pulled a knife…

        Well, I’ve started to notice my situational awareness coming back. There will be people I see shuffling along the streets here who weren’t here only last week, and I’ll think “Oh, crap… I’ve seen this act before…” And I’m no longer talking of just one or two who are seen all over town since the snow melted. No, I’m talking 10 to 15 of these characters who have shown up in a pretty tight time window this spring. While only a couple of them are hanging around Wal-Mart, most of them make a circuit around town that includes Wal-Mart at least once/day.

        • Dyseptic Gunsmith,

          Perhaps you are seeing an influx of vagrants from California now that the weather is nice in Wyoming???

    • Prints? At Wal-Mart, that’s a feature, not a bug! I carry my double-stack .45 Para Tac-Four and a spare mag when going to Wal-Mart here in Snohomish County, or when going in to Seattle. Otherwise I just carry my XDS.

  12. Pretty much most of the open carry I see anywhere is at the Lacey Wal-Mart across town from this one. So I’d expect the the percentage of concealed to be pretty high compared to most places. Shooting up a Wal-Mart in this area in order to get at the ammo would be like robbing a gun store at gun point as he found out. He probably would have had better luck with his car jacking at the Target on the westside of Olympia. Lot of anti-gun types on that side of town. Add to that Targets anti gun policies he’d probably meet little resistance.

  13. I live in Tumwater. Glad the good guy was there. And I guess after he shit him, he grabbed a first aid kit to render aid.

  14. My local Walmart supercenter here in Boynton Beach, FL is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
    They sell ammo by the box at the same price I get when I order it on the net by the case
    If I need ammo at 3 am they are there for me.
    I carry my concealed gun with me into Walmart and do not feel threatened by crime there at all.
    The only Problem is finding a manager with the keys to open the display case
    I can see why the guy shot the case open!

  15. I never leave home without mine! We never know where evil will rear it’s ugly head, and we must be ready to deal with it. When I walk my dog, I have three layers of protection against rogue humans and rogue attack dogs, my German Shepherd, a stun baton, and a pistol. To me it only makes sense.

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